THE HBM: MCD PFCB DRI

The latest ICSC index fell 0.2%. We now have been in a downward trend that has been occurring since late July. Consumers have not stopped spending, but growth remains only modest.

Alcohol not a panacea for all restaurants - NYT.

SUB-SECTOR PERFORMANCE

Sanderson Farms added to Conviction Buy List at Goldman Sachs

QUICK SERVICE

MCD - is reprising its popular traffic-driving Monopoly Game promotion beginning Tuesday at its nearly 14,000 U.S. restaurants - stop on by your local arches and purchase any of the following menu items:

Medium Fountain Drinks (2 pieces)

McCafe Smoothies (2 pieces)

Hash Browns (2 pieces)

Big Mac® (4 pieces)

10-piece Chicken McNuggets (2 pieces)

Egg McMuffin (2 pieces)

Oatmeal (2 pieces)

Filet-O-Fish (2 pieces)

20-piece Chicken McNuggets (4 pieces)

Large Fries (4 pieces)

According to GRUBGRADE this is the best time of year to buy Hash Browns, as they remain the cheapest way to collect game pieces. The contest will run through October 24th.

DPZ and JACK at the Telsey conference today

FULL SERVICE

DRI - Reports EPS tomorrow

PF Chang's announces departure of COO Richard Tasman at the end of FY11

Howard Penney

Managing Director

Rory Green

Analyst

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09/27/11 08:42 AM EDT

THE M3: RWS HIRING; HK BRIDGE; UNEMPLOYMENT; IMPORTED LABOR

The Macau MetroMonitor, September 27, 2011

RWS SEEKS TO FILL 1,000 VACANCIES Today Online

Senior VP of Human Resources, Seah-Khoo Ee Boon, said the tight job market has made it a challenge for RWS to hire, as it looks to fill about 1,000 vacancies for its new facilities, which will include a maritime museum and aquarium and two hotels. More than 500 of the vacancies are in RWS' Marine Life Park, which is scheduled to open in 2H 2012. Seah-Khoo added RWS will remain focused on hiring Singaporeans.

HONG KONG COURT CLEARS CONSTRUCTION OF $11 BILLION BRIDGE Bloomberg

The three judges at the Court of Appeal, led by Robert Tang, ruled unanimously today that the environmental department won the appeal against a suit filed by Chu Yee Wah over air quality concerns on the construction of the Hong Kong- Macau-Zhuhai bridge. The Environmental Protection Department welcomes the court’s judgment and will continue to implement every possible policy in place to protect the environment.

MACAU EMPLOYMENT SURVEY FOR JUNE-AUGUST 2011 DSEC

The unemployment rate for June-August 2011 was 2.6%, down by 0.1% point over the previous period (May-July) and down by 0.3% point YoY. The employed population increased by about 3,700 over the previous period to 335,000.

CASINOS HIRED 800 NON-RESIDENTS IN AUGUST Macau Daily Times

The gaming industry hired 801 imported employees in August, reaching 7,904 foreign employees. According to the Human Resources Office (GRH), there were 88,740 non-resident workers in Macau at the end of August, 1,613 more than July. In addition, the construction sector hired a further 591 non-resident workers to reach a total of 9,352, of which 3,392 were hired by casino developers. The majority of the new non-resident workers hired last month came from mainland China (1,229), taking the total to 51,347.

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09/27/11 08:00 AM EDT

The Only Wall Street Strategy Note Without the Name Of A 1960s Dance In It This Morning

This note was originally published
at 8am on September 22, 2011.
INVESTOR and RISK MANAGER SUBSCRIBERS have access to the EARLY LOOK
(published by 8am every trading day)
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“We can never be gods, after all--but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.”

-N.K. Jemisin, “The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms”

I think we can all be thankful for one thing this morning: we no longer have to talk or joke about “The Twist”. The current Federal Reserve Board once again proved their incompetence as it relates to managing the monetary affairs of the nation. Not only did the stock market not twist, or torque (as Morgan Stanley so calls it), it tanked.

Yesterday actually harkens back to the heady days of 2008 when former Secretary of the Treasury, Hank “The Market Tank” Paulson, would get on T.V. to ostensibly calm the markets and inadvertently talk the Dow down a few hundred handles.

We’ve said it once, and we’ll say it again, the best action that the Federal Reserve can take is to stop what they are doing. QE 1 was ineffective, QE 2 was ineffective, and QE 2.5 Twistaroo will not work either.

As The Economist wrote back in March 2011:

“Operation Twist has long been considered a failure. Early studies found little impact on yields, vindicating those who argued that the price of a security depends only on expectations—of inflation, for example, or monetary policy—not its relative supply.”

Not only did QE1 and QE2 not work, but The Twist itself was tried before in 1961 and deemed a failure.

In case you missed the Fed’s announcement yesterday, or have just decided to tune the Fed out, I’ll explain their intention. The plan is for the Federal Reserve to buy $400 billion of bonds with maturities of six to 30 years, while at the same time selling an equal amount of debt maturing in three years or less. These actions will occur between now and next June.

Ostensibly, the intention of such an action would be to narrow the yield curve and bring down long term interest rates. Undoubtedly the Fed Heads are hoping this will lead to a rash of mortgage refinancing, which will free up cash for consumers to spend. This idea is cool in the theories of macroeconomic textbooks. . . unfortunately real life is not theoretical. This action actually has very negative implications for an already tenuous global banking sector.

Simply, a narrowing of the yield curve hurts financial stocks. The cash flow of financial companies is driven by a funny little critter called net interest margin, or NIM. Banks borrow short and lend long, and thus collect a spread on the transaction. As the yield curve naturally narrows, or forcefully narrows by Keynesian intervention, the margins for banks compress.

Our Financials Team, led by Josh Steiner, actually discussed this very topic a few weeks via a 65+ page in-depth study on the topic (ping sales@hedgeye.com if you’d like to trial our Financials vertical and receive access to the deck and Steiner’s team for dialogue). In the Chart(s) of the Day today, we borrowed two charts from Steiner’s presentation. The first chart shows that asset yields for the major banks, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo specifically, track the 10-year yield with a very high correlation. So, as 10-year yields decline, so too do asset yields for major banks. In the second chart we show the potential impact on margins. In short, as we think 2012 earnings estimates for the major banks could get cut in half.

The credit default swap markets for the major banks reacted as we expected yesterday and widened dramatically. Specifically:

Bank of America 5-year CDS widened 11.7% to 372 basis points;

Wells Fargo 5-year CDS widened by 12.6% to 142 basis points;

Citigroup 5-year CDS widened by 12.5% to 260 basis points;

Morgan Stanley 5-year CDS widened by 12.0% to 355 basis points;

JP Morgan 5-year CDS widened by 10.6% to 146 basis points.

It’s worth mentioning that Moody’s came out and downgraded the long-term credit ratings of Bank of America and Wells Fargo, citing, “an increased likelihood that the federal government allows a large U.S. bank to collapse.” We’re not so sure how much, if at all, impact this had on the credit markets, given that: a) ratings agencies are lagging indicators and b) the results of allowing a “large U.S. bank to collapse” didn’t go so well the last time (Lehman Bros.).

As indicated by the moves in the CDS markets, the irony is that the Fed’s actions yesterday negatively impacted the creditworthiness of major banks and, no doubt, their willingness to more aggressively extend loans and credit.

For those of you that aren’t applying for Canadian passports after the Fed’s actions yesterday, we are hosting call at 11am eastern today titled, “What’s Next for the Eurozone?” Akin to the idea of being the tallest dwarf, the intermediate term future looks increasingly negative for Europe, which on a relative basis actually makes the U.S, in particular the U.S. dollar, look good.

On the call today we are going to spend time going through the history of the European Monetary Union, discuss the lead up to the beginning of the sovereign debt crises, as well as potential outcomes. A key focus on the call will be on the exposures of the European banking sector to PIIGish sovereign debt. In some instances, these exposures make subprime look like a speed bump.

We will be sending the presentation and dial in materials for the call to our clients later this morning, but if you are not a client and would like to trial our institutional service then please email our head of sales, Jen Kane, at sales@hedgeye.com. Jen recently returned from maternity leave and would love to chat with you.

CHART OF THE DAY: Perceived and Actual Risk

Perceived and Actual Risk

“I am a contrarian in the sense of being willing to take on perceived risk as opposed to actual risk, because the market pays you for taking perceived risk. You may or may not get paid for taking actual risk.”- Wilbur Ross

Wilbur Ross’s quote above gets to the heart of the question facing markets today. Is the risk in the market actual or only perceived? Well, consider some of the following data points.

Bank of America 5-year credit default swaps traded at 402 bps on Thursday of last week, a new all-time high (then dropped slightly to 382 bps yesterday). Morgan Stanley’s credit default swaps closed Friday at 440 bps. 21 of the 40 largest European banks now have their swaps trading over 300 bps, 13 of which are trading over 400 bps and 10 of which are trading over 700 bps. A default swap at 300 bps implies approximately a 20% probability of default, 400 bps equates to a default probability around 25%, and 700 bps of annual premium works out to around a 40% default probability.

At the end of the second quarter 2011, Bank of America had $74.8 trillion of gross notional derivatives outstanding, second largest among US banks (JPMorgan leads the pack). Of that $74.8 trillion, $4.1 trillion represents OTC credit derivatives. Morgan Stanley has $56.4 trillion in notional derivatives outstanding, $5.7 trillion of which are OTC credit derivatives. Of course, the vast majority of these notional derivatives are offset positions that should be effectively hedged (assuming no single large counterparty defaults).

So what does all this mean? Notional derivatives show the size of a bank's counterparty risk, and cds shows the likelihood a bank will default (according to the market). Together, they give us an idea of the problem we have on our hands. The market is currently saying that BAC – a bank with $76 trillion of gross derivatives exposure – has roughly a 25% chance of default. Today, the majority of the systemic risk to the system is coming out of Europe and is likely to be addressed head-on on Thursday at the German Bundestag vote. The market rallied yesterday amid speculation that the EFSF can lever the 440 billion Euro fund up to 2 trillion Euros. However, the German courts may not allow the facility to use leverage without first getting additional approvals from the Bundestag. Stay tuned.

Looking beyond the systemic risk posed by Europe and large bank counterparty exposure, fundamentally, the problems of the US Financials have been on three fronts thus far this year:

- First, there’s been the ongoing issue of mortgage putbacks and great uncertainty on the part of investors around what the true liabilities are for companies with large mortgage exposures like Bank of America. This explains why tangible book value offers no support to the stock. BAC is currently trading at approximately 50% of tangible book value.

- Second, systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) were hit this summer with an aggressively punitive capital surcharge under Basel 3 of 2.5%. This is in addition to existing Tier 1 common requirements of 7.0%. The largest US banks (JPM, BAC, C, WFC) will all be hit by this. This is one of the factors calling into question whether Bank of America needs to raise common equity. For reference, BAC has approximately $115 billion in tier 1 common capital under Basel 3 but needs $171 billion to be fully compliant (a shortfall of roughly $56 billion), though, importantly, they are not required to reach this level of capital until January 1, 2019, which is obviously a long time from now.

- Third, falling revenues and deteriorating fundamentals are putting the squeeze on the banks’ ability to navigate through these challenges. The newest problem facing the sector is that of declining margins (revenue) hitting simultaneously with rising credit and operating costs. Take Bank of America as an example. In 2Q, the company reported roughly $2 billion in non-cash pre-tax earnings from releasing credit card loan loss reserves through the income statement. For several quarters now, these non-cash pre-tax earnings have been used to offset cash expenses associated with higher mortgage servicing related costs and mortgage putback expenses. The catch is that those credit card reserve release non-cash earnings are about to come to an end for all six of the largest US card issuers (BAC, JPM, C, COF, DFS & AXP). This will occur at the same time that the Fed’s Operation Twist will really start putting the squeeze on bank net interest margins. Earth to the Fed: flattening the long end when banks have no more room to take down funding costs is not going to help bank margins.

None of these issues are going away – or are they? On Friday there was an interesting story out of Bloomberg talking about the upcoming Basel meeting this week (Tuesday & Wednesday). The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision – the same folks who gave us the 250 bps SIFI surcharge this summer – is now considering the need for changes to those surcharges. Not surprisingly, large lenders in the crosshairs of these new rules feel they’re unfair and would like to see them changed. This is a matter of politics, and we have no real edge on the outcome, but we would point out that a substantial chunk of the 34% downside in the XLF since February 21 of this year can be traced back to SIFI surcharge pronouncements this summer. While it’s hard to precisely deconvolve how much of the selloff is attributable to each of the three factors we itemized earlier, an announcement of capital relief by Basel would trigger a material rally in the Financials. Keep your antennae tuned to this potentially important development.

Finally, on a completely unrelated note, take a look at NYSE margin debt. Margin debt hit its post-2007 peak in April of this year at $320.7 billion. Let’s put things in context. The chart below shows the S&P 500 overlaid against NYSE margin debt going back to 1997. In this chart both the S&P 500 and margin debt have been inflation adjusted (back to 1990 dollar levels), and we’re showing margin debt levels in standard deviations relative to the mean covering the period 1. While this may sound complicated, the message is really quite simple. There are two important takeaways. First, when margin debt gets to 1.5 standard deviations or greater, as it did this past April, that has historically been a signal of extreme risk in the equity market - the last two times it did this the equity market lost half its value in the ensuing period). We flagged this for the first time back in May of this year.

The second point is that margin debt trends tend to exhibit high degrees of autocorrelation. For those unfamiliar, autocorrelation is simply a statistical term that means that trends tend to continue. In other words, the last few month’s change in margin debt is the best predictor of the change we’ll see in the next few months. This is important because it means that margin debt, which has retraced back to +0.64 standard deviations as of August, still has a long way to go. We would need to see it approach -0.5 to -1.0 standard deviations before the trend reversed. We’ve dropped 230 S&P handles in getting from +1.5 standard deviations to +0.64 standard deviations. Bear in mind there’s plenty of room for short/intermediate term reversals within this broader secular move. That said, this setup represents a material headwind for the market.

Josh Steiner, CFA Managing Director

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09/27/11 07:02 AM EDT

THE HEDGEYE DAILY OUTLOOK

THE HEDGEYE DAILY OUTLOOK

TODAY’S S&P 500 SET-UP - September 27, 2011

Another short squeeze into month-end; fancy that. As we look at today’s set up for the S&P 500, the range is 56 points or -3.78% downside to 1119 and 1.04% upside to 1175.

SECTOR AND GLOBAL PERFORMANCE

Some central planners would hope that a day like yesterday would solve all of the world’s problems. Hope, unfortunately, is not a risk management process. The Top 3 Sectors in the US equity market today were the 3 that still look the worse from their closing prices (Financials, Basic Materials, and Energy).

In the end, Strong Dollar = Strong America, because it Deflates The Inflation. And you are starting to see that in the daily divergences with Consumer Discretionary and Technology looking 2nd and 3rd best, respectively, next to Utilities (the only Sector that’s bullish TRADE and TREND).

The other 6 of 9 Sectors remain bearish on both TRADE and TREND durations. We shorted Consumer Staples (XLP) yesterday as it broke last week and the international companies in the ETF are going to face FX headwinds in the coming quarters if we continue to be right on the Strong Dollar position (USD).

EQUITY SENTIMENT:

ADVANCE/DECLINE LINE: 1401 (+601)

VOLUME: NYSE 1157.38 (-5.89%)

VIX: 39.02 -5.41% YTD PERFORMANCE: +119.83%

SPX PUT/CALL RATIO: 1.86 from 1.31 (+41.91%)

CREDIT/ECONOMIC MARKET LOOK:

TED SPREAD: 35.77

3-MONTH T-BILL YIELD: 0.02% +0.01%

10-Year: 1.91 from 1.84

YIELD CURVE: 1.66 from 1.61

MACRO DATA POINTS (Bloomberg Estimates):

7:45 a.m./8:55 a.m.: Weekly retail sales from ICSC/Redbook

9 a.m.: S&P Case-Shiller, July, est. M/m 0.1%, prior -0.06%

10 a.m.: Consumer Confidence, Sept., est. 46.0, prior 44.5

10 a.m.: Richmond Fed Manufact. Index, Sept., est. -11, prior -10

11:30 a.m.: U.S. to sell 4-week bills

12:30 p.m.: Fed’s Lockhart speaks on economy in Jacksonville, Fla.

1 p.m.: U.S. to sell $35b 2-yr notes

1:20 p.m.: Fed’s Fisher speaks in Dallas, Texas

4:30 p.m.: API inventories

WHAT TO WATCH:

Treasury Secretary Geithner predicts European governments will step up response to debt crisis after chiding from counterparts around the world, in comments on ABC last night

Goldman Sachs said to consider deepening cost-cutting, may lead to additional job losses: NYT

Google+ U.S. visits up 13-fold last week after site opened to the general public: Experian Hitwise

Oracle may make more deals to buy industry-specific software makers, CEO says

Liberty Media wants to buy Spain’s Telecable, Expansion reported; other bidders said to include CVC Capital, Ono, Carlyle Group

Blackstone tops list of most active private-equity firms, with deals valued at $20.3b, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, followed by Avista Capital at $14.2b

Oneok Partners (OKS) sees net income $740m-$800m in 2012, up from forecast 2011 earnings of $630m-$660m

Priceline.com (PCLN) appointed former Microsoft executive Darren Huston as CEO of its Booking.com unit

It felt like an investor in Gold yesterday (a trader who was underwater from his Friday Gold purchase), but I’m smart again today! With an +8% rally “off the lows” in Gold (a +22% move in Silver!) is just another day at Bernanke’s price stability casino. Copper and Oil both seeing their dead cat bounces this morning but TRADE lines of resistance for both are well established overhead at $84.98 and $3.68, respectively.

MOST POPULAR COMMODITY HEADLINES FROM BLOOMBERG:

JPMorgan Differs With JPMorgan on Apple IPad Order Research

VW Soups Up Golf for Twice the Price After Phaeton Flop: Cars

Galvin Brothers Garner U.K. Chefs’ Award for City Restaurant

Starbucks Sevenfold Gain Over S&P 500 Fuels Put Buying: Options

Cavalli Chief Sees Luxury-Goods Slowdown as Debt Crisis Deepens

Family Dollar Investors Bet on Sale as Shorts Flee: Real M&A

Li & Fung Advances After Billionaire William Fung Buys Shares

German Consumer Confidence Will Hold Steady in October, GfK Says

Universal Entertainment to Invest $2.3 Billion in Manila Casino

China Yurun Food Advances by Most in Three Weeks in Hong Kong

Goodman Fielder to Raise A$259 Million With Entitlement Offer

MillerCoors Claims New England Patriots Broke Sponsorship Deal

Netflix Gets 57% Cheaper for Amazon-to-Google Acquirer: Real M&A

Tesco Cutting Price Gap With Asda, Not Starting Price War: BofA

Nestle Borrows at 4-Year Low as KitKat Maker Favored in Crisis

Porsche at $213,000 Belies Singapore Slowdown: Chart of the Day

Lego Prepares for Global Economic Decline, Borsen Reports

Yurun Plunges Most in Six Years After Saying Profit May Fall

Kodak Declines After Drawing $160 Million From Credit Line

Clorox Drops After Carl Icahn Withdraws Slate of Directors

CURRENCIES

EUROPEAN MARKETS

GERMANY – day 3 of a +6-7% short squeeze in German stocks from their YTD lows (after crashing -33% since May), but if the DAX can hold its head above 5441, it will have conquered its immediate-term TRADE line of resistance. That would be bullish (on the margin) and that’s why I don’t have any European shorts on right now (currency or equities). Wait and watch here as the CAC’s TRADE line is 3042; Greece up small.

ASIAN MARKETS

ASIA – huge squeeze in the Asian equity markets that literally went down in a straight line last week (KOSPI +5%, Indonesia +4.8%, HK +4.2%, etc), but all of these markets remain in Bearish Formations with KOSPI and HK TRADE lines of resistance = 1799 and 19476, respectively.

MIDDLE EAST

Howard Penney

Managing Director

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